We enjoyed a lot of this spectacullar glacier and this beautiful peak. It was an interesting alpine experience with my friend Maribel. We climbed on Friday and we were only a few of people without guide (10 versus 40). I never considered the possibility to try the Barre in our conditions (limited experience in ensemble) and I was very tired in the summit.
Tomorrow I will return to my job but when I will close the eyes I will remember for a second this amazing place in my mind. I will remember the wonderful dawn over the Glacier Blanc for a long time.

Climbed it solo from the refuge Glacier Blanc. Conditions were OK. Cold. And a lot of fresh snow, sometimes waist deep. Barre des Ecrins and Pic Lory failed because of iced conditions on the ridge and wall.

Left from Refuge des Ecrins (thanks Jeannot for another wonderful stay in a Refuge run by you) at about 3.45 am and reached the summit together with Willhe and Cé at about 7.30 am. We went straight up through the middle of the glacier (steeper) as the normal route was considered to be too dangerous because of the risk of falling ice.
Excellent weather and great view (on Mont Blanc, Matterhorn, Monte Viso etc.). I'll be back for the Barre des Ecrins in the (hopefully near) future.

I went out with my friend Maarten thursdaynight from Holland (below zero), we arrived in Ailefroide at friday, late noon. The next day we packed our heavy bags and arrived in the afternoon at Refuge des Ecrins. Instead of sleeping in the crowded, expensive but comfortable refuge we set up our camp at the glacier. Everything went fine, it was a beautiful, not to cold, night, but we made one mistake. We drunk some water out of a small stream just below the refuge. Somewere we knew this wasn't a very good idea with the sanitair of the refuge 100m metres above us, but we were tired, in need of water, and we had little desire to climb up to the refuge for fresh water. The climb went great. It wasn't very demanding, but with our one-day acclimatization it was... Actually we wanted to climb the Barre, but when we came there we had not enough gear and spirit to make the final climb, so we went to the dome, which was also pretty nice. The descent was very long and I've never felt so tired after a climb before. The reason for that revealed itself that night, when all the bad water came out.....

At 3am in the morning, clock alarm sound but wind and storm were yet strong. Jean Philippe, Philippe and me decided to postpone to 7am. At this time sun was there. We got out of the hut and traversed the glacier. When beginning the climb the clouds came down and the wind still was strong (60-80km/h). We decided to continue, reaching the summit without visibility and relatively violent wind at 10h30am. We made some photos and went down quick. Although the Dome is considered a relatively easy climb the weather conditions made the experience harder, like in winter. We celebrated with some beers back in the Glacier Blanc Hut around 13h00pm, at the end of the day it is a 4000m !

When we started the ascent, a small harmless avalanche came down from the first serrac. It stopped 200 m above us. In any case it was a very good wake up call at 6 AM in the morning.

The ascent is rather easy with the exception of the ice couloir just underneath the breche Lory. I would advice to take 4 to 5 icescrews in order to secure this short difficult part of the route since the ice couloir at the bottom ends in a large and deep ice crevasse.